All true, I swear. In middle school, I was in a class with four kids whose names were a perfect storm. Cindy Odor and Cindy Pugh sat in the front of the classroom... and the Butt brothers, Jim and Tim, sat in back. The Cindys were okay, but I couldn't stand the Butt brothers.

Also, true: There was a DARE officer I knew whose last name was Pigg. Officer Pigg.

Spencer Honey was a state official in Arkansas. Very tall, solidly built man. Always felt odd asking for him on the phone. Oh, and I was once in a school where there were two students, both girls, named Unique.

I once encountered a mother in a clothing store who was scolding her daughter, Zucchina, for misbehaving. My friend and I somehow managed to avoid bursting into laughter until after we left the store. But we wonder to this day what Zucchina's little brother was named.

I once knew a nurse who worked in an obstetrics ward; she told me that one problem she frequently encountered concerned new mothers who wanted to give their children such pretty-sounding names as Vulva and Urethra, and she had to explain to them what these words actually meant.

In one of my incarnations I worked in remote land where I got to know a guy whose first name was Wedding. Now Wedding ended up marrying a girl called Darling and I was kind of glad not to be invited to the Darling-Wedding nuptials or I might have died of schmalz.

Ima Hogg was a real Texan who led a fascinating life devoted to philanthropy. Her father (Big Jim Hogg) was the governor of Texas at one point. Uma Hogg is a myth--Ima didn't have a sister by that name.

I heard once about a famous, wealthy family in Texas, I believe, called Hogg. The patriarch (I hesitate to apply such a term to this man) named his daughters "Ima" and "Ura."

And I read once about a law that was passed in... Iowa? I want to say... that forbade naming a child anything degrading. The law was passed in response to a family whose two children were named "Do the Dishes" and "Take Out the Trash." I remember I saw this in print, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. (The first story I only heard about, but it has more of a ring of truth to it.)

Near where I live in Fairbanks is a guy named Richard who goes by the moniker "Skinny Dick." He runs a roadhouse halfway between Fairbanks and Nenana. The name of the establishment is "Skinny Dick's Halfway Inn." His t-shirts are famous.